Engineering

Engineering

A synthetic membrane that self assembles and is easily produced may lead to better gas separation, water purification, drug delivery and DNA recognition, according to an international team of researchers.

A device to mix liquids utilizing ultrasonics is the first and most difficult component in a miniaturized system for low-cost analysis of sputum from patients with pulmonary diseases such as tuberculosis and asthma.

Amr Elnashai, Harold and Inge Marcus Dean of Engineering at Penn State, and Luigi Di Sarno, assistant professor of earthquake engineering at the University of Sannio, Benevento, Italy, have released a second edition of their text “Fundamentals of Earthquake Engineering: From Source to Fragility.”

Tim Kane, professor of electrical engineering in the School of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science in the College of Engineering at Penn State, has been appointed as the new director of the Center for Optical Wireless Applications (COWA).

A late-night, accidental fire in Hammond Building that began in a first-floor graduate student room was extinguished within minutes, but officials have closed the building for all activities on July 29 as a precaution while the building is cleaned and vented. Damage was contained to one room, however, a heavy smoke smell lingering in the building played a large role in the decision.

Penn State is now accepting applications for the online master’s degree in electrical engineering offered through Penn State World Campus. The program will be taught by engineering faculty from Penn State’s Harrisburg campus and the College of Engineering at University Park.

Carrie Lepore, Deputy Secretary of Marketing, Tourism, and Film in the Pennsylvania Department of Community & Economic Development, visited the Bernard M. Gordon Learning Factory on July 23. The goal of the visit was for Lepore to see firsthand the exciting work taking place at the Learning Factory and better understand how the Learning Factory benefits the commonwealth.

Vijaykrishnan Narayanan, Distinguished Professor of Computer Science and Engineering in the School of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, provided a briefing last week on brain-inspired computing systems hosted by the Senate and House National Labs Caucuses.

Penn State engineers have developed a new ‘portable power supply’ that will make it easier to manufacture plastics, therapeutics, fuels and other chemicals from sustainable feedstocks using diverse microbial organisms.

Yong Wang, associate professor of biomedical engineering at Penn State, was recently awarded a five-year, $2.2 million grant from the National Institutes of Health National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute to develop programmable biomaterials.

Michael Janik, professor of chemical engineering and John J. and Jean M. Brennan Clean Energy Early Career Professor in the College of Engineering, has been awarded two independent research grants from the National Science Foundation (NSF) totaling over $478,000.

Mark Bachman and Ethan Miller, both juniors in civil engineering at Penn State, were recently awarded the 2015 Eric J. Gennuso and LeRoy D. (Bud) Loy, Jr. Scholarship from the American Council of Engineering Companies of Pennsylvania.

In early June, Penn State hosted representatives from Volvo Group Trucks Technology and the University of California, Berkeley (UCB) to explore an East Coast-West Coast collaboration around intelligent commercial vehicle research.